Content: how to make it work for you

Madeleine Sugden

Content Manager

www.knowhownonprofit.org

What is an organisation’s web content for? • Proof of existence – about us, who we are,

contact us

• Resources - help people do something

• Inspire - encourage action / change behaviour / entertain

5 questions

Five things to think about to help you make the most out of your content….

1. Audience

• Who is your audience?

• What do they want?

• What do they know already?

1. Audience

• Will they get beyond your homepage?

• Who are you talking to?

• Are you using the right language?

• Are you current?

• How do you know what the audience wants?

Wigan and Leigh CVS

• First impressions….?

• Very busy, too much to read, hard to know where to start

Community Action Southwark

• Much cleaner, simpler

• Users don’t have to spend time working out where to go

• Good use of short words and images

East Grinstead CVS

• Segmenting the audience

• Makes it clear what information is for who

• Shows that they have thought about how people use the site

Wigan and Leigh CVS

• Very clear information

• Written well for the audience

East Cornwall CVS

• Very out-of-date information

• What does this make you think about the information on the rest of the site?

• If you can’t maintain information, don’t publish it!

Community Action Hampshire

• Clearly presented event info

• Gives the user everything they need to know before signing up

Working with Men

• Questionnaire asks the site users what they want

• Probably backed up with off-line research too

Friends of the Earth

• Sharing results of their feedback survey with users

• Important to build engagement with supporters, show them you are listening

2. Presentation• Presentation is the key to everything. Not

just about design but how to present the content:- how you help people find info- how you display it on the page

• Knowing how people read online is useful.

2. Presentation• Are you helping skim reading?

• Are you writing for the web?

• Is information easy to find?

• How much information are you giving?

• How are you using images?

• Is your content accessible?

Birmingham Settlement

• Lots of information here

• Not easy to skim read

• Simple to improve by adding headings to each section

British Heart Foundation

• Really well presented

• Good, clear headings

• Short bulleted lists

• Images to bring to life

• Written for the audience

• Written for the web

Arthritis Research Campaign

• Very detailed information of their activities

• Good to have pie chart but what does it all mean (£1.2m spent on education)?

• Paragraphs are complicated and long

• What was the impact on people?

Break

• Shows the impact on people

• Bullet points make it easier to read

• Could have enhanced further with stories about real people

BVSC

• Everything you would expect on a Contacts page

• Presented very clearly

• Listed top right – on every page

Voluntary Action Epping Forest

• Navigation is presented top centre

• 15 links – too many. Should be 7-9

• Very wordy links, why need to repeat VAEF?

• Some things could be grouped together

• List in order of importance / popularity

Voluntary Action Barnsley

• Much clearer navigation

• Short, concise, easy to read, easy to understand

WISH

• (this is the homepage)

• Confusing image – what is going on?

• Big story from 2007!

Community Action Hampshire

• Strong image

• Maybe too strong? Not very welcoming body language!

Kids Company

• Very strong image

• Engaging

St Albans Museum

• Links at bottom not presented well

• ‘Click here to find out more information about …’ is a lot to process before getting to the important words.

• Simple, meaningful links work best

• ‘Click here’ is inelegant and on its own not accessible

Kensington and Chelsea

• Well presented links using meaningful text

• But links to download files should be labelled within the link - eg hallmarks of an effective charity (PDF, 5M)

• Ideally file size included too

• Ideally Word equivalent for PDFs

3. Medium

• Content isn’t just printed words

• Are you using the best format to bring the content to life?

• Are you using audio / video?

• Is it interesting / fun / useful?

Sight Savers

• Lovely story of Kelvin presented as text

• Great picture

• But told from the perspective of Sight Savers

• What could be added to make it more personal?

Macmillan Cancer Support

• Karen telling her own story

• Quite a long clip but very engaging

High Peak CVS

• Video is being used to give an insight into a project

• Great way to engage others

• Doesn’t have to cost a lot

Action for Prisoners’ Families

• Audio story

• Do the words introducing Nancy’s story make you want to listen?

• Have to work to listen to it as the play button is somewhere else on the page

• You have to work to bring people in and not expect them to work to engage

World Service Trust

• Series of podcasts

• Uses good words and images to draw you in

4. Marketing

Once you’ve put effort into making your site wonderful, but how will people know it is there? Who are you marketing your site to?

• Help people find your site

• Search engines

• Use all channels available

• Integrate on and offline activities

Google search for ‘depression’

• Search finds no charities in top 10

• Mental health charities could to change this (eg pay for keywords, use the word depression on their sites, include the word in metadata, encourage people to link to them using this word)

• What words would people use to find you?

Barnsley Council

• No link to Voluntary Action Barnsley

• Other places online to promote your website: links on NAVCA site, links on local websites, council, links and quotes from organisations you have helped

• Include web address on posters, emails, publications etc

Voluntary Action Manchester

• Using other sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube to reach their audience

VAM – on Flickr

• Sharing photos

• Might not want this content on their site, but nice to show who they are and what they do

VAM – on YouTube

• Sharing video from events

• Healthy number of views

• Again, helps to build their community

5. Interact

• From passive readers to active users

• Use your site to build your community

• Make it easy to interact / get involved

• Take advantage of ‘influence windows’

5. Interact

Many ways people to interact on your site:• sign up to newsletter• join a project group• sign up to a course / event• subscribe to news feed• follow you on Twitter• become a member• apply for a job• download directions

RSPB – Bird watch

• Engaging text explaining why you should get involved

• It’s fun!

Peterborough CVS

• Trying to engage about topical subject

• Contact via email to join in – might be best way as sensitive information?

• Very one-way interaction ie you don’t hear what others are saying

VONNE

• Discussion board – helps you connect with others

• Wide range of topics

Basingstoke Voluntary Services

• Not very engaging

• Most recent at the bottom of a very long page

• No indication of what is in each newsletter – why should I read

• Link from ‘here’ bad practice for accessibility

HaltonVA on Twitter

• Using Twitter to keep in touch with their followers

• Share news / updates

• Can also follow others (eg NAVCA) to find out what’s new. Much better than having to go to their website regularly to keep in touch

NAVCAnews on Twitter

• Lively community, sharing and passing on news

• Great way to keep in touch with what’s new

Doncaster CVS

• Screen seen once signed up to Newsletter – doesn’t engage

• Am now part of their community and might be willing to do other things

• Missed opportunity to promote other ways of staying in touch

Plane Stupid

• People want to engage – don’t apologise for it!

• Once they have engaged (in this case signed up for newsletter) tell them about other things they can do. Make them feel part of your work

Oxfam

• Great idea to add a donation when buying something

• Much more likely to add donation at this point

• Oxfam are making it easy

• Taking advantage of ‘influence windows’

5 questions - PAMMI

Presentation

Audience

Medium

Marketing

Interact

Madeleine SugdenContent ManagerKnowHow NonProfitwww.knowhownonprofit.org